When I showed to her she was pretty convinced that it was phishing. Then we saw that people have been having trouble getting into the American Girl website, and when they did what the email said they got an error message.

We could be wrong, but it’s probably phishing. If you received this email, DON’T CLICK ON THE LINK, AND DON’T GIVE THEM YOUR INFORMATION! Better safe than sorry!

Here’s what Mom says about emails:

You never click on a link in a email unless you are expecting someone to send you a link. Instead go directly to the website in this case american girl.com, and look for the information from the email. If you can’t find it on the website, the email is a scam.

My family went to a homeschool convention last March. One of the booths had books and doll dresses. My mom bought me the three books (Which I am going to review eventually.) and a dress, which I am about to show you.

Here are the books that they had. The books are historical fiction about a girl named Lauren. She’s not really a pioneer, but the dresses they were selling remind me of pioneer dresses.

This is the rack of dresses. I liked the yellow one also, but it was gone before we got back there.

Here is the doll modeling a shawl and a dress. (They sold crocheted shawls also)

This is the dress I chose. It was 12$.

I put it on Lea to model the dress. It’s nice, with lots of detail, but I didn’t like how big it was on her.

So I turned the dress inside out and put it back on Lea.

Then I pinned it up and sewed the seams to make it smaller.

I like the dress much better now that it fits better. It has lots of detail, and is very well made (Except for being too big, but that might just be the style.) The print is little white flowers.

The neckline has a peter pan collar. The fabric is the same on both sides.

The sleeves are a little bit puffy. It reminds me of a dress I wore in the production of Mary Poppins that I was in. It had sleeves just like that.

The waist is ruffled very nicely and the skirt is very full. There is a little bit of pink thread showing, but you can barely see it in person.

The bottom of the skirt has a ruffle on it.

The back of the dress is just as nice. The ruffles are just as full on the back.

The back of the dress closes with three snaps. I asked the person at the booth (Who had made all the dresses) and she said that she didn’t like velcro because it gets caught in doll hair, so she did snaps. It’s also more time period.

All the seams are surged.

Overall this is a very nice dress. All the seams are finished nicely, it has lots of detail, and it’s cute. It didn’t fit all that well, but I’ll let that pass for now.

American Girl has decided to do away with the stupid permipanties! Here’s what American Girl said:

**An Important Update for Our Customers**

We love and appreciate our dedicated American Girl fan community, and we take our role in listening and responding to your feedback very seriously. In recent months, many of you have shared your thoughts on how we can continue delivering the great products you’ve come to expect from us. We’ve heard you, and we will be implementing two changes as a result.

First, we will be reverting to the separate underwear design for all of our 18-inch dolls. Starting today, any dolls that are currently in production or any new dolls being developed will now come with removable underwear. Because there are dolls with permanent underwear already in the market, this will be a rolling change—meaning dolls that currently have the permanent underwear design will remain as is until the inventory is sold through.

However, if you currently own an American Girl doll with the permanent underwear and are disappointed with the design, we will do a one-time, free body exchange on the doll to create one with separate underwear and return the doll to you at no cost. For details on this offer, please click here: http://bit.ly/2rKyn0n

Second, we have made the decision to return to our iconic boutique box for our 18-inch dolls. Only the new 2017 contemporary characters, as well as some of our Truly Me dolls, will come in the current packaging until inventory is sold through. In addition, none of our 18-inch doll outfits will be sewn directly into packaging, with the exception of any existing inventory for our 2017 contemporary characters.

Thank you for caring enough to share your candid and heartfelt opinions with us, and we are sorry if we disappointed you in any way. Your feedback helps us deliver on our promise to create high-quality products, services, and experiences that nourish a girl’s spirit and help develop her strength of character.

Your Friends at American Girl

I’m really glad that they decided to do away with permipanties. It sounds like they have finally heard us. But what about squishy vinyl? Thinner fabric? Neck ties? Cheaper products? Are they not going away also?

Notice that they only got rid of the changes that were most hated. There’s nothing holding them back from making cheap dolls still. My mom says they only care about our opinion because they care about our money.

When I was younger I remember trying to braid flower crowns and leaves. One of my older sisters could do it, but I never quite understood how to add in more flowers without it falling apart, and it always fell apart. Now that I’m older though, I can do it. Today I am going to attempt to show you how, so pay attention.

You can make flower crowns for you or your dolls. The one I took pictures for I made for me, just because it was easier to take pictures of the bigger flowers.

Start by picking a bunch of flowers. The longer the stems the less you will have to replace flowers, but the shorter the stems the closer together the flowers will be.

Or you could just sit in a place with a bunch of flowers like I did.

Start with three flowers that don’t have super short stems. It doesn’t matter if they are the same length or not.

Cross the right flower over the middle flower.

Then cross the left flower over the new middle flower, what used to be the right flower.

Cross the right over the new new middle again, then the left, then the right.

Keep braiding until one of your stems becomes almost too short to use, but still long enough for one or two more crossovers.

Pick another flower and put it on top of the short stem.

Braid with the two stems until the first stem is all braided and all you have left is the new stem.

Keep braiding this way, replacing stems in that way until your crown is as long as you want it.

There are multiple ways to finish the crown. You can tie the ends together with string, you can tie each end to ribbon and tie a bow, or you can weave the ends into the beginning. I took the ends and wove them into the beginning of the crown.

There you have it! A braided flower crown!

For Gabi’s crown I used smaller flowers. I love the way it looks on Gabi!

These flowers are purple violets.

Here’s the top view. You can see it doesn’t all look perfectly even, but that’s okay.

For Easter I dressed up all my dolls in nice, springy outfits and took them outside for a photo shoot. I did a group picture, but also single pictures of each doll. I am going to use these as profile pictures because the place where I used to take profile pictures no longer exists.

Group picture!

This was really fun to take. I had to arrange all fifteen dolls. (Count them!) Most of the dolls are positioned well. A couple of them I don’t like so much, such as Gabi, Jenny, and Faith. Overall though, I really like this picture.

I am going to try to use it as a header image. I don’t know how well that will work…

I really like this picture. Mckenna’s hair is frizzy, and I didn’t have a good pair of shoes for this outfit that no one else was wearing, but whatever. Who needs shoes?

Mckenna is wearing:

A dress that I sewed and tie dyed,

The shrug from the fall outfit I bought at our local festival,

The matching hair bow with aquamarine lace wrapped around it.

I like this one too. The outfit looks good on Abby, but come to think of it, she would never wear something that frilly.

Abby is wearing:

American Girl Grace’s opening night dress

Headband from American Girl Grace’s opening night outfit.

I like how the tall grass and flowers cast shadows on Riley.

Riley is wearing:

Shirt from the American Girl spring breeze outfit,

Tunic from the American Girl spring breeze outfit,

Leggings from the American Girl warm winter outfit,

Shoes from the American Girl spring breeze outfit,

Random butterfly hair clip.

Katelyn isn’t looking at the camera. Argh! And her hair is messy.

Katelyn is wearing:

My Life As dress,

Headband from a Madame Alexander outfit. (I looked, but I got it years ago, and I have no idea what the outfit is called)

Oh, I love this picture of Grace. Even though the shoes never made it on her.

Grace is wearing:

Skirt that I made out of lace and fabric I dyed,

Tank top from American Girl Gabriela McBride’s meet outfit,

American Girl Isabelle’s purple Wrap sweater.

Argh! This one’s kind of blurry.

Hope is wearing:

Cheerleader dress from my local festival,

Pom pom from the cheerleader outfit (In her hair)

Headband from Our Generation Joy’s meet outfit,

Boots that I made.

Joy looks so adorable in that dress.

Joy is wearing:

A dress that I made,

Our Generation Joy’s meet shoes.

Maria isn’t looking at the camera, but I like this one.

Maria is wearing:

A baby dress I adjusted to fit my dolls,

The headband from the American Girl love to layer accessories,

The shoes that Journey Girl Callie was wearing when we found her.

Not one of my favorites, but it’s okay.

Faith is wearing:

A baby dress I adjusted to fit 18 inch dolls,

Our Generation Parker’s meet shoes.

I absolutely love this one. It fit’s Eileen’s personalty so well.

Eileen is wearing:

The American Girl petals and posies dress that Mia was wearing when I found her,

A pearl bracelet from Our Generation,

Random blue ribbon,

And she’s holding a dandelion.

I don’t really like this picture, but it fits Lea’s personality.

Lea is wearing:

American Girl Merry Magenta dress,

American Girl Merry Magenta headband.

I really like the outfit that Mia is wearing.

Mia is wearing:

A dress that I made,

A sash that my cousin crocheted,

The Journey Girls shrug Callie was wearing when we found her,

American Girl Lea’s meet shoes,

Our Generation Parker’s meet headband,

An ice skate charm on a piece of ribbon.

I like this picture. If only Gabi was sitting up more.

Gabi is wearing:

Our Generation Doll shirt, (Someone gave it to me, and I never identified it)

American Girl headband from Grace’s baking outfit,

American Girl Gabriela McBride’s meet leggings,

American Girl boots from Soft As Snow outfit.

Callie is so fun to pose! This picture was fun to take.

Callie is wearing:

A dress I made,

Headband from American Girl Spring Breeze outfit,

Shoes from Our Generation tworiffic twin set.

Argh! Jenny’s hair is so frizzy.

Jenny is wearing:

My Twin Blooming Flower dress,

My Twin shoes,

Random hair clip.

So there you have it. This year’s Easter photo shoot. I hope you enjoyed.

At my house we have always had this doll. She’s about the size of a three year old. When people come over they say she’s creepy. (I’ve managed to freak people out multiple times.) I’ve never thought she was all that creepy, but we’ve had her for longer than I can remember. However, she has almost no hair. The doll used to be my great aunt’s, and when she was little she cut the doll’s hair. Very short.

I once made a headband with yarn hair on it, (Which you can see in this photo storyHere) but it didn’t look much better.

Mom wanted her to look nice, so she asked me to re wig her if she bought the wig, and of course I said yes.

We were researching Holly, and it turned out the original doll had only an inch or so more hair then Holly had at the time we were researching her. Holly was also a knock off. (Like an Our Generation doll instead of an American Girl doll.)

We measured the doll’s head, and ordered a wig. I was rewigging Holly for Mom’s Christmas present, so I wouldn’t let her see it.

Here’s Holly at the beginning. Both of her eyes are getting silver eye, but since the last time I did doll eyes didn’t work out too well I didn’t want to try again.

I took scissors and cut her hair as short as I could get it.

I took a nail polish remover wipe and cleaned her skin. It got quite dirty.

This is the wig right out of it’s packaging.

This picture is a bit blurry, but it’s a dark brown Peggy Sue wig in size 17-18 from eBay.

I tied the long hair in a ponytail so it wouldn’t get in the way.

I just put it on her head and adjusted. I didn’t glue it on, though now I wish I had. It stays on well enough, but slides around some.

I took Holly outside for a photo shoot. Yes, she is wearing her Christmas dress, though it is March. Her bangs are a bit long, so I just bobby pinned them to the side.

I really like this picture.

We all like Holly better than we did before. She isn’t creepy anymore.

That next morning I could barely pull myself out of bed so I didn’t bother. It wasn’t like anyone wanted me there anyway. I would have asked Savana to take a note up to the office, but she had already left so I just went back to sleep.

A couple minutes after the bell rang I heard a knock on my door.

“Can I come in?” It was Ellen.

“What’s wrong Joy?” She asked

“I don’t feel good.”

“That’s understandable, but why didn’t you tell someone you wouldn’t be coming?”

“Savana wasn’t here, and I didn’t feel like getting up,”

Ellen sat down in the chair. “Is everything alright?”

I thought about just telling her that I was sick so I wouldn’t have to tell her about the girls picking on me, but I told the truth. “A few girls have been picking on me because of my illness.”

“You know, you can’t let them hurt you.” She told me. “You have to decide that you don’t care about they they are saying.”

I don’t think you can still buy this dress, as I received it for my birthday last summer, and I don’t think it’s still in stores.

The dress came with a headband, but not shoes, so I paired the dress with the shoes from the American Girl Truly Me meet outfit.

The headband has a pink bow matching the trim on the dress. It’s made of pink plastic with comb like ridges on the top. It fits very well, coming all the way down the doll’s head.

The dress has two layers, a white lace, and a shimmery blue cloth underneath.

The blue fabric ends, leaving just lace at the top. It looks kind of strange on Lea, but the My Life As dolls have a plastic breastplate so they can wear clothes like this. The edges are trimmed with pink shimmery cloth that matches the pink ribbon sash. It has little ripples in it, like when you hem a circle.

The sash doesn’t continue all the way around, but the lace at the top does. Velcro comes down part way to get it on and off.